Chapters 1-5 Summary

Midaq Alley is a bygone gem, an isolated, dead-end off Sanadiqiya Street in Cairo. Enormous, balding Uncle Kamil is usually found napping outside his confectionary. His neighbor and best friend is the barber Abbas. The owner of an office, Salim Alwan, lives outside the quarter. The three-story residences at the end of the alley are shuttered against the cold. Kirsha's Café fills with patrons after work. It is dilapidated, with walls covered with arabesques, and a floor scattered with couches where patrons smoke, drink tea, and talk.

Patrons include Sheikh Darwish, a man in his fifties whose dress is a mix of native and western, who is lost in a world of his own. A senile poet, who for twenty years has performed in the café, defies Kirsha by coming to recite and is ordered out. A self-trained dentist, Booshy, and...